Tag Archive: science

Precious Little “Charity”…

We have seen in recent months that much is being made of ‘Charities.’ For some rather unknown reason, many Charities seem to be in full possession of our private telephone and mobile numbers. In fact, many of them seem to be phoning us repeatedly, trying to get us to sign-up to whatever worthy cause they may represent. Yet stranger still, they appear, for all the world to be targeting those on the lowest incomes and those who are in receipt of benefits? Why is this? Look closer still and you will find that all manner of Charities are re-inventing themselves – but so are businesses and services too! Every large commercial company seems to be jumping on the ‘Charity’ bandwagon -whether Tesco, Sainsbury, Robinson’s, or just the Local Corner Shop: everyone is riding on the newest, most expansive ‘market.’ It couldn’t be for the huge Tax Breaks that Charities are afforded? With the paring to the bone of local services and community amenities, charities are stepping into the picture, promising all manner of possibilities. Yet, if we scratch beneath the surface we will find that, many of the so-called Charities are little more than another marketing ploy, and that their ‘charitable gifts’ are only to be afforded if everyone buys ‘x’ amount of their products or signs up to some loyalty card. The suggestion that Government Cuts can be, somehow, overcome through the intervention of ‘Charities’ is a fantasy: one perpetuated by the ridiculous and insolent notion of ‘The Big Society,’ a utopian ideology put forward by David Cameron, as if it was the ‘answer to the Universe and Everything.’ Coming from the very same Political Party who, under PM Margaret Thatcher declared “there is no such thing as ‘Society‘…” the very idea of the Conservatives giving a hoot (or even two) about the ‘great unwashed’ is as absurd as a Bullingdon Man not getting bloodied for putting some Oik firmly back in his Working Class place! No. The whole of Society is now infected with a Victorian Ethos: one based on “gratitude.” and by extension the re-emergence of the “status” of ‘Parish Charge,’ where the impoverished individual had virtually no autonomy.

Put simply: we are being returned to a time where the poor were ‘allowed‘ to live and through the actions (ie theChristian Generosity/Charity/Indulgence) of the Church Parishes, The Temperance Movement and Civic Bodies such as The Free masons, the Chamber of Commerce and Parish Committees – they were equally, never allowed to forget their lowly and tenuous place in life.

Reductio Ad Absurdam or The ‘Null Point Repudiation..’

It is said that almost ninety percent of the staff of the NHS are against the NHS Reform Bill. Yet for every person who is against the Bill, the Coalition seems determined to suggest there are actually more in favour than we can see. This is a ‘null point’ or ‘cancellation’ – argument, designed to wear down resistance to Government Authority. In the face of fact , it is reasonable to suggest that the Coalition will spout anything and everything to suggest the opposite. In many ways, it is already through attrition, [ie. the ‘wearing away’ of resistance] that Government has forced through its odious ‘Welfare Reform Bill..’ However. One has to ask, Why do the Public seem to be aware of this? The answer is likely to be found in the effect of ‘positive propaganda.’ By short-circuiting argument, resistance is lowered: by reinforcing the positive aspect of their Policies (all the while simultaneously underpinning them with the diammetrically opposite: “no-choice but this choice” stratagem, the ‘negative’ arguments [and by extension] – resistance- is also, worn down. In the same way as it is difficult to argue with someone who is (or appears to be), in the face of an aggressive onslaught, calm, contented, smiling: almost affectionate, – by two opposing methods (most of these can be found in handbooks about rearing ‘difficult’ children,) the emotional ‘energy’ within dispute, argument, confrontation and defiance is effectively neutralized. The first is very positive reinforcement, encouragement, warmth and heightened empathy (containing within the ever present threat of censure) while the other is more aloof, unyeilding, persistent and even provocative. Both tend to neutralize opposition – but not in any factual or meaningful way.Another effective way to neutralize opposition is to reduce an opponents argument to absurdity. Recently Employment Secretary Chris Grayling suggested that opposition to the Government’s ‘Workfare’ Scheme had originated from, and was presently being compounded by, activists and members of the Socialist Workers Party. This ‘absurd’ statement – in the face of evidence to the contrary – is an example of ‘reductio ad absurdam.’ In the same way as Health Minister Andrew Lansley has sought to reassure the Public that the NHS Reform Bill is not about Privatization of the Health Service, He has stated that the ‘majority‘ of NHS Staff support the Reform Bill!? He has accused a ‘small minority’ of opposing the Bill – when the facts are that over ninety-percent oppose it and want to see the Bill dropped in its entirety!

Public appearances by Government Ministers are now more carefully staged than ever…

They are in essence mere ‘Public Shows,’ designed to affect observers and audiences, rather than those in the immediate viscinity of the dispute. It is why Political ‘Messages’ can seem so much more reasonable at a distance than close up. Indeed, by appealing to a Television Audience, they are ignoring those in front of them. Now that you know.. perhaps you won’t be fooled so often by TV Political Broadcasts?!

The Grief of A Nation.. (How Government is using DABDA as weapon to push their political agenda forward.)

According to the Five Stages of Grief, they are generally experienced as Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance. They are experienced in different ways by different people. Some take a longer time to pass through each of the stages, others appear to descend through them rapidly and, on the face of it, they appear to recover more quickly. Given that we all experince grief in differing time scales –

How can Government use the grief process to influence Public Behaviour towards its authority?

The answer is, they control the effect of grief through controlling the scale of its effect.That is, by ‘freezing’ their target audience in a particular stage of the process, they can appear to speed up or slow the process down, impacting much more effectively on those intended to feel its effects while deterring others in the wider public from acting against their wishes.

How does it work? An extreme, though entirely reasonable example is to be found during the Nazi Holocaust. Many psychologists, psychiatrists and social sciences experts have postulated theories about why those who were captured, (and in view of their overwhelming numbers,) did not simply attack their captors and escape? The truth is that the Jews were not afforded the time to pass through all the stages of grief. The impact of their new situation (ie being held in a Concentration Camp or Ghetto) was so immediate and so shocking, that they had virtually no time to formulate any kind of resistance. From the very first moment of capture, to the moment of being packed tightly into cattle-trucks and herded together, no-one knowing what was to happen to them (but everyone knowing it was not good) until they were seperated out into Men, Women and Children and subsequently chosen. Again, because no-one actually knew outside of the camps what was the fate of those who were chosen, they could not find time to resist. The break-neck speed at which they were selected, “de-loused” and finally, disposed of, meant that along the whole length of time that they were experiencing the process of grief, at no time were they ever able to complete the process. This in itself might be thought enough, for the grief process interrupted is also denied – except that those who were allowed to live, were plunged beyond the three intitial stages into the final stages of depression and acceptance. Unlike the first three stages, depression and acceptance are almost gravitationally cyclic.. they appear to ‘crush’ the desire to live out of the individual. In the cycle of depression and acceptance, thousands of people can be controlled by only a few well-armed guards. A controlling factor in the cycle of depression and acceptance is fear. Fear of the crematoria, being gassed and fear of seeing their families destroyed was enough to perpetuate the cycle of depression and acceptance. The same methodologies can be found in every despotic regime across the World. Mass murder instils instant fear – that fear ‘short-circuits’ the first three stages of grief.

How does this relate to what Government are doing?

Government attacks a weak minority with propaganda, with their repeated accusations of a ‘hidden’ criminality amongst the group they have identified, and, progressively, dehumanizes those it wishes to affect/punish (the reason is irrelevant.) By attacking, for example, the Disabled, Mentally Disabled and Mentally Ill the Government feeds their progandist assertion that the group they have chosen to victimize is actually responsible for what is happening to them. In the Handbooks of the FBI, CIA, Special Forces Hostage Negotiators there is a simple, yet visceral rule: those who are about to be killed are first dehumanized. This is a indisputable and incontravertible military principle, inasmuch as it is the single most identified ‘justification’ for individual and mass murder. It is regarded by all as “an inevitable conclusion to the dehumanization process.” Through a barrage of Newspaper ‘articles,’ filled with spurious statistics and crypto-scientific ‘evidence’ – through unverifiable, yet ‘reasonable’ anecdotal witness accounts and statements, through a wide variety of Media propaganda and the consistent and continuous vilification in print, televised political events and, of couse, statements read ‘under Parliamentary privelige’ – the dehumanization process is completed. NB. It is said that, by the time the Nazis were able to ‘deal’ with German Jews, a mixture of fear, loathing, hatred and spite culminated in indifference to their suffering – such was the effect of Nazi Propaganda by Newspaper and Radio alone! Compared to the immediacy and power of today’s Media and Internet, the power of Nazi Germany’s Propaganda, pales! Government ‘witch-hunts’ are nothing new – but, one might argue, that the effect of the present Coalition’s wholesale attack on the ‘most vulnerable’ in Society has been (and will yet be in even greater magnitude) ‘catastrophic.’

The stage of grief the Governement appear to be consistently holding the Public in is ‘Anger.’ But not the kind of anger that garners resistance to a cause, nor results in revolution. This stage of anger is being polarized by the repetition of concepts that are almost ‘secret fears,’ within Society. In the same way after the events of July 7th 2005 caused widespread anger and fear within the British Public.Subsequent Government behaviour appeared to ‘ramp-up’ the Public’s emotional response. to the London Bombings. During this time of public grief, the Nation (as a whole – with few apparent dissenters) allowed Parliament to push through a raft of Legislation designed to curb the Civil Rights of British Muslims. Indeed, the most vocal (and possibly hysterical) voices came from the Popular Tabloids! Month after month of anti-Muslim, anti Civil Liberties rhetoric was published again and again and again, until the Public became as “on message” as their paranoid counterpartsin America!

However: the ‘secret fear’ (one might even refer to them as contemporary ‘Urban Myths’) is that everyone who is Unemployed is secretly rich – everyone who is Disabled is secretly wealthier than the Able Bodied and (my personal favourite) everyone who is Unemployed is lazy and lies in bed all day, owns an Iphone, has loads of kids they claim Benefits for, and is lazy!! (just in case you didn’t get it..?)Much of the time those who postulate these urban myths are people who remember what they did – for it is certain, due to the number of people who have hobbies and pastimes that show many levels of unknown skills – laziness is expressed by only a very small and fixed number of people. Yet, the Government’s ‘lie’ and their compounding of those ‘myths’ (eg.”no smoke without fire”) has a significant and deliberately damaging effect!

In any case, it is much more effective to use a series of ‘half-truths’ than it is to use a lie. So instead of deliberate decit, the Authorities will compound urban myths, backing them up with spurious ‘sciences’ (lending credibility and intellectual gravitas to any concept) while stirring up malcontents within the Media and Publishing, resulting in the improper polarization of Public Opinion and the engines thereof.

By ‘trapping’ the Public in a state of continual ‘anger’ – the Government can control the Public’s reactions and direct their energy towards those held ‘responsible’ – irrespective of any over-arching truth.

The Christian/Catholic/Lutheran/Protestant Churches all used the same methods in their purification/indoctrination of the masses.

They used to be called “Witch-hunts” – and their single and only purpose was toburn the Witch!